


Burn Bright

by almostjulie



Category: Farscape
Genre: Gen, Homesickness, Light Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-17
Updated: 2016-03-17
Packaged: 2018-05-27 04:53:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6270328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/almostjulie/pseuds/almostjulie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Soon after arriving on Moya, Crichton’s having trouble adjusting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Burn Bright

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don’t own anything. No harm is intended.
> 
> Crichton’s dialogue is borrowed from David Bowie’s _Space Oddity_.

He doesn’t sleep much anymore. There’s no day, no night, out here, and Crichton’s circadian rhythm is all screwed up. There’s a constant hum and gurgle from Moya that reminds him that he’s on a living thing, which is fascinating when he pauses to think about it, and the noise might be comforting if it wasn’t so _strange_. 

Time’s relative anyway, he tells himself, and you can’t grow old if you can’t keep track of your birthday, but he’s desperately looking for something familiar to hang onto. 

Sometimes, when he can’t sleep, he sits in Command and stares out at the stars. Zhaan finds him there, once, and he tries to explain how he’s a space pioneer, really, and everything he sees is a first for humanity. She doesn’t get it. “It’s just a star system, John,” she says, with kindness, but also boredom, in her voice. “Just like the last three we passed.” She walks away, and he feels as out of place as a tourist in New York City, gawking up at the skyscrapers. 

“Major Tom to Ground Control,” he says to himself, under his breath. “The stars look very different today.” 

When he does finally sleep, he dreams of the sun, burning bright and familiar in the sky. Comforting. He wakes up in the dark, reflexively looking for an alarm clock that’s never there. He wonders when new routines will kick in. Life out here has been far from routine, though, and he thinks maybe he’ll never settle into patterns. 

Other times, when he can’t sleep, he heads down to the Maintenance Bay. He tinkers with _Farscape 1_ a lot. Fits her out for life in the Uncharted Territories. The work exercises his brain, keeps his mind busy. Life now is long stretches of nothing punctuated by frantic activity: that’s what he gets for throwing his lot in with prisoners. Not that he had any choice. 

His module reminds him of home, and about how much things have changed. 

Aeryn comes down to the Maintenance Bay sometimes, too, and works on her prowler. She’s distant at first, working silently, methodically. But the more times they meet down here, the more she opens up. They share tools, advice. It’s almost companionable. Until he tells her he dreams of going home. In her silence he remembers she can’t: there’s no hope to fuel her dreams like there is for his. She takes a wrench from his toolkit and turns back to her prowler. Like his module, it’s her one connection to her past life, Crichton realizes. So they have something in common. It’s slim and inconsequential, but it’s something to build on. He’ll take it. And try not to put his foot in his mouth. 

He dreams of the sun, and of Earth and Budweiser and barbeque. He dreams of Aeryn, too. But she’s as out of reach as the sun, and just as likely to burn him if he gets too close. Won’t stop him from trying though. 

***


End file.
